Tim Burton

Resnick Pavilion

May 29, 2011–October 31, 2011

Tim Burton was born in Burbank in 1958. After studying at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), he worked as an animator at the Walt Disney Studios before breaking out on his own. Taking inspiration from popular culture, fairy tales and traditions of the gothic, Burton has reinvented Hollywood genre filmmaking as an expression of a personal vision.

The exhibition brings together over 700 drawings, paintings, photographs, moving-image works, storyboards, puppets, concept artworks, maquettes, costumes, and cinematic ephemera, including art from a number of unrealized and little-known personal projects. Many of these objects come from the artist's own archive, as well as from studio archives and private collections of Burton's collaborators.

Two large-scale outdoor artworks are also installed on campus: a topiary inspired by Edward Scissorhands (1990), and Balloon Boy, an enormous figure based on an amalgamation of characters that Burton first introduced in his 1997 book The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories.

On Sunday, October 30th, the exhibition will remain open all night, and on Monday, October 31st, it will be open until midnight. Tickets will be half-price from 12 am to 9 am on Monday morning. (UPDATE: Tickets are SOLD OUT online.)

This exhibition was organized by The Museum of Modern Art, New York.The Los Angeles presentation was made possible in part by LACMA’s Wallis Annenberg Director’s Endowment Fund.

Looking back on the past four months of my Tim Burton experience, it seems as though my fellow gift shop employees and I have seen and heard just about everything. The sheer number of people we encounter on a daily basis can be overwhelming, but fortunately at night, as we close the store, we are able to slow down and reflect. This is the time of day that the public doesn’t experience—when all the chatter has dissipated and the Sleepy Hollow scarecrow...

Our annual Muse Costume Ball is always one of the highlights of the year at LACMA, but this year’s was truly something to behold. 1,200 costume-clad characters overtook the museum for a night of Tim Burton-inspired revelry. Below, just a few of the highlights. Check out KROQ’s photo album for many more, or this Facebook album from Snap Yourself!...